At night I hang my paper dolls across the ceiling –

they sway like dancing children

by the open window

They are charcoal slivers when my lids are shut

or the long black stems of the hydrangea plant

 

These are the lines they make in the light

holding hands –

A moving carousel of paper bodies

encircling a mirror

 

I stop here to watch their little mouths spreading wide

Drooling rosary beads onto the floor –

As they drop they burn in rhythm

behind my eyes

 

and I become dizzy and stop to ask them,

does my mother know me?

To her I am a golden egg, a piece of turquoise, the string of paper dolls

 

Yet I told them my room would be

shadowless, floodless,

 

From a fine ink line of calligraphy

the moon curls into one high point

and the paper bodies round me move

desiring to feel its light performing on the window ledge